Rotation 2 Fall #4: Food Preservation Objectives Students will be able to:! explain one or more reasons for preserving food;! state one or more methods for preserving food. Oregon Content Standards: HE.03.HE.01- Recognize the importance of variety and moderation in food selection and consumption. HE.03.HE.02- Choose a variety of foods to eat from different food groups. HE.05.HE.02- Describe how media, cultural and family influences encourage healthy eating practices. Lesson Length!"#$%&'()* Materials This depends on which type of food preservation you are doing- see below.! end of the fall quiz questions! paper and pencils! white board for score! sheets/table clothes for indoor cooking activities Vocabulary food preservation, dehydrator, food safety Background As long as people have been around we ve been preserving food. Food preservation and storage is part of what allows us to settle in one area and stay there during leaner times of the year. Historically, how food was preserved depended a lot on the climate of the area. In warm climates, food was often dried using the sun and wind. In areas with cold winters, food was frozen. These techniques evolved over time with people creating more and more elaborate ways to preserve food. Root cellars, icehouses and food dryers are just a few examples of these. Only a few generations ago, canning was a traditional summer and fall activity, allowing for the preservation of garden s bounty. In the last decade, with the onset of pre-packaged meals and refrigeration, a lot of food preservation skills are being slowly lost. But knowing how to preserve food is an important part of gardening. There s always something in the garden that produces so prolifically that it can t all be eaten fresh or given away. Knowing how to can, dry, smoke, pickle or freeze foods insures that nothing goes to waste. We enjoy eating from our own gardens because the fruits and vegetables are often fresher and therefore taste better than those in the grocery store. The same can be said for food you ve preserved yourself. You know that you ve picked it at the optimum time, ensuring great flavor. Preserving food can also save you money, cutting down on grocery bills all year long, not just in the height of the gardening season. It is also another way to eat locally. Much of the food in the grocery store comes from far away, especially out of season foods. These foods have to be shipped, wasting gas and causing pollution. Eating your own preserved food can significantly reduce your environmental impact. Procedure Introduction 1) Gather the students together and talk a bit about harvesting and preserving food. Explain that when their grandparents were
Preparation This is a prep heavy lesson. Give yourself plenty of extra time to set up food preparation stations. Make sure that each station has all the materials they need. For some of the food preparation lessons you ll need to either buy materials ahead of time or prepare a certain part ahead of time. Garden Tasks o Saving seeds o Harvesting produce that the students can take home, discuss how long these things will last without some form of preservation o Collecting leaves and covering the beds for the winter o Weeding and cleaning out beds so they can be covered o Turning off the irrigation system Hygiene Needs When preparing food with groups of students it s important to keep proper hygiene in mind. Make sure that everyone washes their hands, that the produce that will be cooked with is washed and that all your tools are clean. Pre-clean all tools. (Especially key for any sort of canning, otherwise the preserved food can make people really sick!) And leave the needed time in your lesson for the washing of hands and produce. young, people had to preserve fruits and vegetables because there weren t many available in the winter. Gardens and fruit trees don t produce much in the winter. Then refrigerated trucks and ships were invented and now we can ship fruits and vegetables from places where it s always warm. 2) Brainstorm with the students different ways people save (preserve) food for eating at a later time: canning, freezing, drying, salting, pickling, smoking 3) Ask the students to each think of a reason that we may still want to preserve fruits and vegetables even though we can buy them fresh all year at the grocery store. Some reasons: o It can save money to preserve foods when they are in season and local. o The food tastes better if it is local and was allowed to ripen (instead of being picked green for shipping.) o We use less gasoline if we do not have to drive to the store as often. Less fuel is used by ships and trucks to transport the food from around the world. (Food in the US travels an average of 1500 miles to get to our tables. That takes a lot of fuel.) o We can supply some of our own food rather than depending on other people to do so. Activities Split the students into two groups. One group will do a food preserving activity while the other group does either an end of the fall game show quiz to reinforce what they have learned or garden tasks. See Food Preservation Ideas at the end of this lesson for a few ideas on what you could do with the students. Wrap-up End of the Fall Quiz Game 1) This can be played two ways. You can use the pre-made questions or start by giving each student a slip of paper to write down their own questions and answers based on what they learned in the garden so far. Put the slips of paper into a hat and draw them out to ask questions. 2) Split the students into two or three teams. Each team will have one minute to come up with a team sound. This is the sound they will make when they want to answer the question. Each team sits in a single file line. 3) When you ask a question count to three. After three the first
person in the team s line can buzz in by saying their team sound if they know the answer. Only the person in the front of the line can answer. No helping from the back of the line! Call on whoever buzzed in first. Once the question has been answered, they go to the back of the line and the next person gets a chance. 4) Keep track of points and make sure to remind them of any answers they get wrong or confused. Congratulate all the teams on everything they have learned at the end. Adaptations To simplify 1) BEWARE, cooking always takes longer than expected. Though this says it s for a 45 minute session, you need to have at least that long if not a 1 1/2 hours to really make some of these things work if the kids are doing the cooking. Make sure you get the cooking started right away! For short sessions just do a demonstration with some already prepared stuff for the kids to taste at the end. 2) Don t do the intro with the whole class. Do it with students during standing around time while cooking. You ll need a volunteer to be watching the hot things while you lead this. To add complexity Let students dry or can other plants from the garden to see how they will turn out. They can even make their own recipes up if they re older. Rainy Day: Any of this can be done inside, just make sure that you ve collected things to preserve ahead of time. Also, you ll need sheets and tablecloths to keep desks clean while you re working on the food preservation. And keep in mind that many classrooms only have one small sink, so water for washing might be difficult. Food Preservation Ideas Drying Apples: apples, dried apples, apple corer, citric acid or lemon juice, bowl, slotted spoon, food dryer o Harvest one apple per person if the garden has an apple tree. Otherwise, each student may get one apple from the local orchard bag of apples. (try to get these donated) o Put an apple on the apple corer and turn the handle until the apple is cored and sliced. o Break apart the slices and put them in the bowl with citric acid or lemon juice. (Explain during the demonstration that the lemon juice keeps the apple slices
from turning very brown. The brown doesn't taste any different, but most people like them to stay lighter.) o Use a slotted spoon to scoop the apple slices out of the bowl and place them on the food dryer tray, with no overlapping. o Let the apples dry for 24 hours and bring the finished apples during the next garden session. If you thought ahead it would be cool to have some already dried apples for them to try. Jam: fruit, bowl for washing fruit and strainer for washed fruit, sugar, pectin, lemon juice, measuring cups and spoons, pot and burner, stirring spoon, containers for finished jam, if canning- another pot for sterilizing glass jars, tongs for removing them o Have students harvest fruits from the garden- blueberries, strawberries, raspberries or get some donated. o Have some students wash fruit while others measure out the amount of sugar, pectin and lemon juice you will need. o Talk about the difference between canning jam, and doing freezer jam. With canned jam you need to boil the jars to sterilize them. (Have an adult demonstrate this if you re going to do it.) It is not needed if you make freezer or refrigerated jam. o Follow the instructions on the pectin box. Let each student have a turn to stir or add an ingredient. o When finished, pour the jam into jars or containers for the students to take home. If canning you will want to re-boil the now filled jars to seal them. Pumpkin (or any squash) butter: knife, bowl for holding seeds, strainer for washing seeds, bowl for seeds to sit in salted water, salt, already cooked pumpkin, spoons for scooping, another bowl for pumpkin puree, smashing implements, sugar, spices, measuring cups and spoons, pot and burner, stirring spoon, containers, same extra ingredients as above if canning o To do this you ll have three fast rotations or three groups. One will be cutting up a pumpkin and rinsing the seeds then letting them soak in salt water for later baking. Another will be scooping the cooked flesh from a pumpkin that you ve already cooked from the rind and smashing it until it s smooth. The last group will be cooking the pumpkin puree, adding the sugar and spices. o Make sure that you go over each of these stations with the whole group before starting. Then get to work. If they are rotating, make sure to leave work for each group at each station. o Finish by pouring the pumpkin butter into jars or containers that the students can take home. For every 1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree add:! 1 cup white sugar! 1 1/2 t ground cinnamon! 3/8 t ground nutmeg! 3/8 t ground ginger! 1/4 t ground cloves
Salsa: many knives and chopping blocks, tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, cider vinegar, cilantro, salt, pot and burner, stirring spoon, containers, same extra ingredients for canning o This will require a lot of chopping. If all ingredients can t be found in the garden, you ll need to get some things at the store to supplement. o Children often don t like hot things, so hot peppers aren t needed unless they re in the garden anyway. o Split into teams to get all the chopping done. One group can stir ingredients as they re added to the pot or each group can get a chance to come up and stir. Once the ingredients have boiled, let them simmer for a few minutes before pouring into cans.! 10 cups chopped, seeded, peeled, cored tomatoes (about 6 pounds)! 5 cups chopped and seeded long green peppers (about 2 pounds)! 5 cups chopped onions (about 1 1/2 pounds)! 2 1/2 cups chopped and seeded hot peppers (about 1 pound)! 1 1/4 cups cider vinegar! 6 cloves garlic, minced! 2 tablespoons cilantro, minced {optional)! 1 tablespoon salt
End of the Fall Quiz Questions for Rotation 1 1. What are the three types of soil? 2. Name three parts of a plant. 3. What do plants need in order to grow? 4. Give an example of a plant that we can eat the leaves of. 5. Name a plant in the garden and explain how to harvest it. 6. What are two ways that seeds can be dispersed? 7. What does WAMO stand for? 8. Give an example of a plant we can eat the fruit of. 9. Why do plants want their seeds to move around? 10. Name a plant in the garden and explain how you would save it s seeds 11. What do leaves do for plants? 12. Where could you find the seeds of a plant? 13. Give an example of a plant that we can eat the stem of. 14. What s the best kind of soil for plants to grow in? 15. Give an example of a plant that we can eat the roots of. 16. What are some creatures that live in the soil? 17. How are soil creatures helpful for the garden? 18. What s something you can plant in the fall? 19. What s the best way to plant a plant? 20. How are gardens good for people? End of the Fall Quiz extra Questions for Rotation 2 1. What is compost? 2. How do you make compost? 3. What s the difference between an annual and perennial? 4. Give me one example of an annual and one of a perennial. 5. What is it called when plants make food for themselves? 6. What do leaves do for plants and how are they formed so that they can do that? 7. What s one way you can preserve food?